The Observatoryhttps://observatory.journalism.wisc.edu
Produced by the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism and Mass CommunicationThu, 17 May 2018 20:26:07 +0000en-UShourly1119313099Non-war gun deaths higher in U.S. than in many democracieshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/wisc/kQvz/~3/7YlZthLvGWI/
Thu, 17 May 2018 18:36:26 +0000http://observatory.journalism.wisc.edu/?p=17670Guns have been a hot topic of debate over the past few months, with passionate participants arguing for and against stricter gun control. One common argument for stricter gun control is that the rates of gun violence in the United States are much higher than in other countries because other countries have stricter gun control laws.

The basis for our evaluation is comparing the amount of violent gun deaths in each country and the current laws and regulations on guns in each country. These deaths exclude armed conflict, accidents and self-harm.

The United States

In the United States there were an average of 3.85 violent gun deaths per 100,000 in 2016. This is significantly worse than the other countries on our list except Brazil. The United States has the 31st highest rate of deaths due to gun violence of all the countries in the world. The United States falls ninth highest socioeconomic status in the word, but every other country above it has lower rates of gun violence. The ease with which one can buy a gun differs from state to state, so the difficulty in obtaining a gun varies, but here is some general information.

Age: Federal law requires a person be 21 to purchase a handgun, but he or she can purchase a long gun at age 18. Some states have laws that either increase or decrease the minimum ages. For instance, in Minnesota, 14-year-olds can purchase a long gun if they have a firearm safety certificate.

Licensing: Most states do not require a license to possess or purchase a firearm.

Coburn Dukehart / Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

Students and citizens rally against gun violence as they march to the Wisconsin State Capitol building on March 14, 2018 in Madison, Wis. Background checks are not required in Wisconsin when purchasing from an unlicensed dealer.

Background checks: Purchasers must pass a background check if they are purchasing from a licensed dealer. Background checks prohibit felons, domestic abusers and some others from purchasing firearms. When it comes to purchases from unlicensed dealers, background checks are required only in 19 states, not including Wisconsin.

Training: There are no federal firearm safety training requirements, although six states plus the District of Columbia require safety training or the completion of an exam in order to purchase a firearm.

Japan

In Japan, there were .04 violent gun deaths per 100,000 in 2016. This is the second lowest rate in the world. Singapore takes the No. 1 spot with .03. A person is 96 times more likely to die by gun violence in the United States than he or she is in Japan. Japan has the Firearm and Sword Possession Control Law, which prohibits possession of a firearm, handgun parts, handgun ammunition or imitation handgun unless otherwise authorized by a specific provision.

Age: Minimum age to own a firearm is 18.

Licensing: All gun owners must have a gun owner’s license. In order to obtain a license, a person must have a genuine reason for wanting a firearm. A license has to be renewed every three years.

Training: A firearms safety course is required. At the end of the course, participants have to pass a test.

United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom there were .07 violent gun deaths per 100,000 in 2016. A person is 55 times more likely to die by gun violence in the United States than he or she is in the U.K. Firearm policy is based on the assumption that owning a gun is a privilege instead of a right.

Age: In the United Kingdom, a gun ownership license can be obtained at age 14, a person can purchase a firearm at 17 and a shotgun at age 21.

Licensing: All gun owners must have a gun owner’s license. In order to obtain a license a person must have a genuine reason for why he or she wants a firearm. A person must provide character references.

Canada

In Canada, there were .48 deaths per 100,000 in 2016. A person is eight times more likely to die by gun violence in the United States than in Canada. Canada is considering stricter gun controls. The proposed laws would have more comprehensive background checks and ensure a valid license is used when firearm ownership is transferred.

Age: The minimum age for gun ownership is 12 with certain limitations or 18 without restrictions.

Licensing: All gun owners must have a gun owner’s license.

Background checks: Background checks are completed for all applicants. Background checks consider criminal, mental health, addiction and domestic violence records. In addition, an applicant’s spouse, partner or next of kin must be interviewed before a license can be issued.

Training: A firearms safety course is required and applicants must pass a test.

Brazil

In Brazil there were 19.34 violent gun deaths in 2016. A person is five times more likely to die by a violent gun death in Brazil than in the United States.

Age: The minimum age for firearm ownership is 25.

Licensing: All gun owners must have a gun owner’s license. In order to obtain a license, a person must have a genuine reason for why he or she wants a firearm.

Training: A firearms safety course is required, and participants must pass a test.

India

In India there are 0.88 violent gun deaths per 100,000. A person is four times more likely to die by a violent gun death in the United States than he or she is in India. Firearms are regulated by multiple government and police services in India. The right to private gun ownership is not guaranteed by law. In addition, no civilian is allowed to have an automatic firearm. Private possession of handguns and semi-automatic assault weapons are allowed with a license.

Age: The minimum age for firearm ownership is 21.

Licensing: All gun owners must have a gun owner’s license. In order to obtain a license a person must have a genuine reason for why he or she wants a firearm.

]]>17670https://observatory.journalism.wisc.edu/2018/05/17/non-war-gun-deaths-higher-in-u-s-than-in-many-democracies/Tariff tit-for-tat sparks fear of a trade war with China hitting Wisconsin farmshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/wisc/kQvz/~3/hhkNwWW4dFo/
Fri, 11 May 2018 19:26:35 +0000http://observatory.journalism.wisc.edu/?p=17427It’s a waiting game for Wisconsin farmers as they watch the market to see how a recent trading spat between the United States and China will affect prices for their products.

In March, President Donald Trump announced a 25 percent tariff on steel imports and a 10 percent tariff on aluminium imports from all countries except Canada and Mexico. Numerous countries, including those in the European Union, also were excluded later.

Trump’s actions were lauded by the U.S. steel industry but sparked a back-and forth of retaliatory actions with China — sparking intense criticism from U.S. industry leaders and politicians.

U.S. Rep. Ron Kind, a Democrat from Wisconsin, wrote an op-ed in the Tomah Journal criticizing the president’s actions.

“Instead of supporting growth in our farms by opening new markets and making a push for more exports, the president is creating trade policies that do more harm than good,” Kind wrote on March 26.

“This short-sighted decision will raise the cost of farm equipment, eliminate jobs and be the grounds for retaliation by the trading partners we rely on…,” he said.

The action did trigger retaliation, but the full effects of escalating threats between the two counties can’t be measured yet. Economists agree, however, that if China’s threatened tariffs come into effect they will have a negative, fairly immediate, impact on the U.S. agriculture industry.

In Wisconsin it could significantly impact exports of ginseng, cranberries and soybeans.

Tit-for-tat trade dispute escalates quickly

Steel and aluminum were not the only goods the United States threatened to slap with tariffs. On March 22, Trump instructed the U.S Trade Representative to put together a list of additional product tariffs against China and to pursue dispute settlement in the World Trade Organization regarding technology licensing practices.

In response, the Chinese Embassy released a statement saying it was “strongly disappointed” that the United States was “ignoring rational voices” and disregarding their mutually beneficial relationship. The country then imposed a 15 percent tariff on 120 U.S. products — including cranberries of which Wisconsin is the nation’s leading producer — and a 25 percent tariff on eight other products including pork. The tariffs affect more about $3 billion worth of U.S. goods, according to Quartz.

Both the original steel and aluminum tariffs and China’s retaliatory list are in effect.

On April 3, the U.S. Trade Representative released a list of suggested tariffs on 1,300 Chinese goods, largely focused on technology, machinery and aerospace industries.

The next day, China announced another set of retaliatory tariffs on 106 U.S. products worth over $50 billion annually, according to CNBC. The list included soybeans, corn, dried cranberries and meat.

Erik Daily / La Crosse Tribune

Both the original U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs and China’s retaliatory tariffs will negatively impact farmers, experts said. But if China’s second set of tariffs go into effect, it will have a fairly immediate impact on Midwest farmers who grow a lot of corn and soybeans. Here, a farmer combines corn near Blair, Wis.

Then Trump doubled down, threatening an additional $100 billion in the tariffs the next day.

The U.S. tariffs could have gone into effect in early May. However, days before the deadline, the White House announced it would send a delegation to China to discuss the two countries’ trade relationship.

China said its implementation date depends on what the United States decides to do, according to a Chinese news agency.

Retaliatory tariffs will hit farms hardest

Farms across the nation are already feeling squeezed. In the last five years, net farm income has dropped by 50 percent and many farm families have diversified, with at least one member earning a salary away from the farm, according to economists.

“We’re very concerned about our bottom line all the way around,” Veronica Nigh, an economist with the American Farm Bureau Federation told The Observatory.

Both the original U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs and China’s retaliatory tariffs will negatively impact farmers, experts said. But if China’s second set of tariffs go into effect, it will have a fairly immediate impact on Midwest farmers who grow a lot of corn and soybeans.

The United States exports 30 percent of soybeans it grows to China every year, roughly $14 billion worth, according to the Farm Bureau. Wisconsin exported more than $7.2 million in soybeans to China in 2017, according to the Richard Hummel, a communications specialist for the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection.

Additionally, the tariffs could also impact $11 million worth of cranberries, and $14 million in ginseng that the state exports to China.

However, products such as soybeans or No. 2 yellow corn are generic commodities — these products are grown around the world,, said Brian Gould an agricultural economics professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison. If those tariffs take effect, China will likely stop importing U.S. soybeans, Gould said, because with the tariffs, they will cost more than soybeans from other countries.

That’s a problem for farmers.

The amount of soybeans and corn they have to sell this year is already set because farms typically make planting decisions at the beginning of the calendar year. Without exporting to China, farmers will need to sell those products domestically — flooding the market.

That will cause market prices to drop, causing farmers to make less from this year’s crop — and any stored product, an asset, will lose value.

“You’ve lost dollars even though you haven’t done anything,” Gould said.

Even the threat of tariffs sent waves through the market. Nigh said soybean prices dropped 30 percent when the news broke. But she said prices recovered some when people realized they wouldn’t take effect immediately.

“(That) can kind of give you an idea of what’s to come if those tariffs were to come into effect,” Nigh said.

Even through the second round of tariffs haven’t been imposed yet, China’s imports of U.S. soybeans have taken a dive, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal.

Chinese importers are holding off on purchasing U.S. soybeans and making contracts for future purchases, the newspaper reported. For comparison, the week of Feb.1, 2018 the United States exported about 809,000 metric tons of soybeans to China, but the week of April 26, 2018, it exported only 193,000 metric tons.

The Farm Bureau has already heard from pork farmers that prices have dropped considerably since the first set of Chinese tariffs. But because export data are sent on a monthly basis, Nigh said they don’t have a good idea of the full impact.

Steel and aluminum impact on farms won’t be immediate

While the retaliatory tariffs will likely reduce farms’ income, the steel and aluminum tariffs will increase the costs to run a farm.

Imported steel will have a 25 percent tax on the current price, and domestically produced steel will raise the price to match it, according to UW-Madison professor Ian Coxhead, a development economist who specializes in globalization, growth and development in East and Southeast Asia.

The higher costs that farm equipment manufacturers incur to produce farm machinery will be passed on to the farmer who buys it, Gould said.

“If you do a search for new or used (farm) equipment, we’re talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars. So it really is a big deal,” Gould said. “It’s not going to be a little amount (that it would go up).”

Indirectly, prices to transport agricultural products will go up because the industry that transports them will incur increased equipment costs as well, Coxhead added.

Gould explained the retaliatory tariffs on commodities could have an immediate impact, but the steel and aluminum tariffs could have a delayed impact.

“The retaliation that happened… (is) probably more significant immediately for farmers,” he said. “That’s going to happen this year, but someone could put off purchasing a new combine or tractor until maybe some of those tariffs go by the wayside.”

Will farms close?

It all depends on the individual farm, according to Nigh.

“I liken that to each of our individual checking accounts. How long could you go without a paycheck?,” she said.

Prices were good for agricultural products in between 2011 and 2013, and farmers were able to save money, she said.

“At some point, those reserves start to run out. We have seen a small increase in bankruptcies over the last couple of years, and the longer the low prices last, the more likely it is that there would be more,” Nigh said.

Smaller farms typically have proportionately more debt obligations than larger farms, and are not able to save as much during the good years. Both those factors would make them more vulnerable to prices changes in the market, Nigh explained.

“What (the tariffs) will do is (they) will reduce the profitability of farming for those markets that are impacted,” Coxhead said. “So it’ll accelerate the rate at which (aging farmers) will exit the industry or decide to retire or consolidate into a bigger operation. And then what they do after that, I don’t know.”

Eventually, those impacts will cascade through the multi-billion dollar agribusiness industry, Coxhead said. It will impact companies that transport agricultural goods, companies that store product in grain elevators and businesses that sell seeds and other supplies to farms.

“If farmers cut back production and stop buying inputs, then the whole ag economy that revolves around farmers buying stuff and selling stuff starts to get productivity levels brought down as well,” Coxhead said.

Macro-economic impact

Coxhead said he believes the real fear is the possible macroeconomic impact a trading dispute could have.

“We know very, very well, and without any ambiguity, that when you have a trade war, nobody wins,” he said. “So if we got to the point, which I don’t think is likely, where there were real measures that restricted trade in a substantial way, then you’d start losing jobs really, really fast in the U.S.”

Gould said the president’s move to restrict free trade is “unprecedented” by going against 25 years of policies promoting free trade that have let countries specialize and expand their markets, but which some critics claim has come at the cost of American jobs.

Trump’s move is “counter to what we’ve been achieving because standard economic theory says that countries are better off if they can trade, and trade in a free environment,” Gould said. “Everybody wins in that situation.”

The last time the world saw a global trade meltdown was in the late 1920s, a precursor to the Great Depression.

“That was set off by exactly the same kinds of rhetorical pressures and mercantilist thinking that, ‘Nobody wins from trade, you only win if the other guy is losing,’ ” Coxhead said.

“Now that’s an extreme example, no one really expects something like that to happen, but that’s where it goes,” Coxhead added. “Because you can’t really expect a country like China, or indeed Japan nor the E.U., not to retaliate if you impose tariffs on their exports. Of course they will.”

Nigh said these tariffs could have a similar impact to the grain embargo of 1980, when the United States banned grain exports to the Soviet Union. The government heavily subsidized farms to compensate for the loss this caused, but the U.S. Department of Agriculture forecasted that net farm income would drop 40 percent, according to the Foreign Affairs magazine.

President Ronald Reagan made good on his campaign promise and ended the embargo in 1981.

Nigh added that if people had taken Trump’s statements at face-value, they shouldn’t be surprised by his actions because he has consistently vowed to rewrite trade deals that he claims put the United States at a disadvantage.

“I think the whole country… is still trying to figure out when the president makes a statement on something how serious is he,” Nigh said. “And I think we’ve come to learn he’s pretty serious.”

But Gould and Coxhead said they can’t predict what Trump will do going forward, or how this dispute will end.

“He seems to be all bluster,” Coxhead said. “But bluster, it’s hard to tell whether the bluster is sheer emotion and irrationality, or whether it’s a more calculating kind of measure that’s intended to achieve some goal.”

Maybe, Coxhead added, the administration’s secret goal is to get China to offer safeguards for intellectual property, which would be a big win. In order to do business in China, U.S. companies have reportedly been forced to turn over trade secrets and technology to Chinese companies, according to the U.S. Trade Representative.

Earlier this year, the office’s investigation found that, “Chinese theft of American (intellectual property) currently costs between $225 billion and $600 billion annually.”

“This is kind of the Trump administration style,” he said. “They want to walk right up to the line and make a lot of noise and issue a lot of threats and see where that gets them.”

Gould said that in the current U.S.-China dispute, politics, and not just economics, have come into play. He believes some of the president’s rhetoric and policies surrounding trade, are to satisfy his political base.

“The tit-for-tat is that now China said, ‘OK, you’re going to put a tariff on our products, we’re going to put a tariff on your products.’ And the products that they’re choosing aren’t manufactured products, they’re ag products, and obviously there’s one reason they’re doing that,” Gould said. “The story is because rural areas are the ones that supported the president. And when you hit agricultural products, you’re hitting agricultural areas, rural areas, significantly.”

Gould added: “There’s just a lot of political stuff going on that’s motivation for this.”

This trade dispute with China is only part the agriculture community’s worry, Nigh said.

She added the Farm Bureau was pretty excited about opportunities under the Trans-Pacific Partnership, but Trump withdrew from that trade deal only ten days into his presidency. He has also threatened to pull out of the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico.

“For us, we feel we’ve been pretty challenged on the trade front in the past couple of years,” she said. “And then you put that on top of other challenges that have led to a decrease of net farm income, and that’s what’s got us so nervous anymore.”

It’s a good thing for other countries if U.S. agricultural products become less competitive, because U.S. partners and competitors can join together for their benefit, and our expense. Nigh noted the E.U. and Mexico just announced their revised free trade agreement, and it will include agricultural products, which it hadn’t before.

“Even if the U.S. stops participating in trade the way we’ve participated recently, those (free trade agreements) are permanent,” she said. “That threat continues, and that erosion of our competitive advantage continues even once our tariff activities have stopped.”

]]>17427https://observatory.journalism.wisc.edu/2018/05/11/tariff-tit-for-tat-sparks-fear-of-a-trade-war-with-china-hitting-wisconsin-farms/Did U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan accomplish everything he claims?http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/wisc/kQvz/~3/Q_2lseqHgUs/
Thu, 10 May 2018 18:10:08 +0000http://observatory.journalism.wisc.edu/?p=17369In an April 12 interview with CBS This Morning, Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin discussed his retirement and touted his achievements during his 19 years in Congress.

“I’ve been working on tax reform since I got here,” Ryan said. “It’s why I became chair of Ways and Means Committee. We got that done.”

He also touted his efforts to boost military funding.

“I’m a big believer in a strong military. Our military has been hollowed out. It’s been — it’s been under duress. We are now fixing that. That is done.”

Ryan went on to say, ”The economic growth platform that we want is in place.

The enterprise zones that I used to work on for years is now in law, which helps poor communities revitalize. So the point being, I have accomplished most of what I came here to do.”

The retiring House speaker claims he accomplished most of what he wanted to accomplish, including tax reform, a strong military and enterprise zones, and these are the three things The Observatory decided to check.

Let’s start with tax reform

If you follow Ryan on Twitter, you’ve seen him tweet about taxes. Ryan claims tax reform has been a top issue for Ryan since he took office in 1999 and became the chair of the Ways and Means Committee in 2015.

In December 2017, the Republicans in the House and Senate passed their tax bill and President Donald Trump signed it into law.

According to PolitiFact, the last major tax overhaul until this one was passed in 1986. This package has different implications for different populations across the U.S., but a few of the key changes are as follows.

The Washington Post reported that the vast majority of Americans will pay less in taxes until 2026. Also, the tax bracket for the top earners has been lowered from from 39.6 percent for married couples earning over $470,700 to 37 percent for married couples earning $600,000 or more. In addition, tax rates for the biggest corporations fell from 35 percent to 21 percent, which The Washington Post called “the largest one-time rate cut in U.S. history for the nation’s largest companies.”

Ryan’s claim stating during his time in Congress “we got that (tax reform) done,” is Verified. The tax changes were the most significant in the past three decades.

The military

Ryan stated that Republicans in Congress have made significant strides in reversing a “hollowed out” military.

Military spending has been declining fairly steadily since 2010. The $1.3 trillion spending bill supported by Ryan and signed by Trump in March increases defense spending by $80 billion for a total of $700 billion.

Spending is one way to measure military strength, but it is not the only way.

Size of the military is another way to measure power. The size of the military has stayed relatively consistent at about 1.4 million total active duty military personnel since 2000. This is almost one million fewer than in the 1980s and ‘90s.

If we consider military equipment such as nuclear weapons, our stockpile has been consistently declining since it peaked in 1986. Nevertheless, the United States has the largest number of nuclear weapons in the world. Russia held this title from 2007 to 2011, but since 2012, we have had the most nuclear weapons.

We rate this claim as Mostly True, because while Ryan did not expand on what his definition of strengthening the military is, it is clear he did play an important role in increasing defense spending, and during his time in office, the United States became the biggest nuclear power in the world.

The enterprise zones

“The enterprise zones that I used to work on for years is now in law, which helps poor communities revitalize,” Ryan stated.

According to Steve McClure, president of the Opportunity Alliance, an economic development consulting firm in Springfield, Illinois, enterprise zones are “areas having boundaries within states where businesses or individuals are awarded benefits based upon their actions, such as making investments, retaining and creating jobs, or even moving to an area to help revitalize the area.”

This concept was championed by Ryan’s mentor, former U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Jack Kemp, and similar programs have been rebranded over the years by multiple politicians.

Ryan’s “opportunity zones” program was added as a tax incentive to last year’s tax bill. Investors in these neighborhoods can get tax breaks both when they invest in designated high-poverty neighborhoods and on money earned as a result of the investment if held for at least 10 years. The Brookings Institution described the program as offering investors a “very favorable” tax treatment.

The second part of Ryan’s claim — that enterprise zones revitalize poor communities — is in dispute. According to multiplestudies, enterprise zones do not necessarily increase employment. And Brookings questions whether this latest program will subsidize gentrification, which tends to push out low-income residents.

We rate this claim as Mostly True. Despite the mixed literature on the effectiveness of opportunity zones, Ryan was successful in getting the program added to last year’s tax bill.

Tax reform, increasing military strength and creating enterprise zones are three of the goals Ryan says he set out to accomplish when he took office. The Observatory ranked his claims as follows, Verified in terms of tax reform, Mostly True in terms of fixing the “hollowed out” military and Mostly True in terms of achieving enterprise zones.

]]>17369https://observatory.journalism.wisc.edu/2018/05/10/did-u-s-rep-paul-ryan-accomplish-everything-he-claims/Shot in the foot? Wisconsin’s weak gun laws may harm us, neighborshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/wisc/kQvz/~3/q575beDsBS0/
Thu, 10 May 2018 18:02:05 +0000http://observatory.journalism.wisc.edu/?p=17363When it comes to gun laws and their ripple effects, Wisconsin may be its own worst enemy, according to one gun control advocacy group and a newly released study from the Journal of the American Medical Association.

They found that the strength of state firearm restrictions can correlate to the level of gun violence in those states — and in nearby states.

The Annual Gun Law Scorecard from the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence is a state-by-state ranking of the strictness of gun control measures. Wisconsin’s laws rank 17th in the nation. However, the state’sgun death rate of 11.4 per 100,000 residents is 35th.

The number of gun deaths in Illinois is more than double that of Wisconsin, but the rate is similar, 1.7 per 100,000 residents. That puts Illinois in 34th place for gun death rate, while the state’s gun laws rank as eighth toughest on the Giffords scorecard. Likewise,Maryland has the sixth strictest gun laws, yet its gun death rate is 32nd.

Why the disparity? The Giffords scorecard attributes Illinois’ high gun death rate to gun trafficking from neighboring state Indiana, while Maryland’s high rate is tied to guns primarily from Georgia and Virginia. All of these neighboring states have less restrictive gun laws.

According to 2016 firearm trace data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, states such as Maryland and Illinois trace 33 percent and36 percent, respectively, of recovered guns to out-of state sources. By contrast, the share of out-of-state guns recovered in Wisconsin — which is bordered by three states with tougher gun laws — isonly 13 percent.

Of the 4,705 guns recovered in Wisconsin, 62 percent of them were obtained in-state, with the remainder untraced.

The prevalence of trafficked guns illustrates the correlation between neighboring states’ weaker gun laws and the burden they place on states with stricter legislation.

For example, the top suppliers of out-of-state guns seized by authorities in Illinois — which is ranked 8th for strictness — all have less restrictive state firearms laws than Illinois, according to the Giffords rankings.

Wisconsin’s gun laws explained

In Wisconsin, criminal background checks are required only for purchases from licensed dealers. Purchases from unlicensed dealers, including person-to-person, gun show or online sales, do not require a background check. This is more lenient than gun control advocates’ preferred option, universal background checks for all gun purchases.

Gun owners also do not need alicense to own or purchase, unless they plan to carry the weapon concealed, in which case a concealed carry permit, which includes a criminal background check, is required.

Under state law, grounds for denial of permission to purchase guns in Wisconsin include people who are felons, a danger to the community, illegal immigrants, mentally unfit and those convicted for domestic violence or subject to a domestic violence protection order.

Although no causation can be made, it is worth noting that Wisconsin’s gun death rate has ticked upward since 2011 after the state passed concealed carry, followed by elimination of the 48-hour waiting period in 2015.

In 2010, the state saw 97 murders caused by guns, according to the FBI. By 2016, the number of Wisconsinites shot to death intentionally by firearms was 166.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, between 2014 and 2016, Wisconsin’s death rate by firearm — including homicide and suicide — went from 8.2 per 100,000 people to 11.4 per 100,000.

Giffords’ analysis of all 50 states and the strengths of their gun laws showed that nationwide, lenient laws lead to more gun deaths, not fewer.

Other researchers agree. An original investigation by the Journal of the American Medical Association compared death rates from January 2010 to December 2014 based on CDC data on suicides and homicides by firearm for 3,108 counties in the 48 contiguous U.S. states.

The study published in May found that “Strong firearm laws in a state were associated with lower rates of firearm homicide. Counties in states with weak laws had lower rates of firearm homicide only when surrounding states had strong laws.”

Its conclusion: “Strengthening firearm policies at the state level could help to reduce the incidence of both firearm suicide and homicide, with benefits that extend across state lines.”

]]>17363https://observatory.journalism.wisc.edu/2018/05/10/shot-in-the-foot-wisconsins-weak-gun-laws-may-harm-us-neighbors/Wisconsin’s rate of lead poisoning worse than Flint, Michigan’shttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/wisc/kQvz/~3/UatGTSXZyTg/
Thu, 10 May 2018 17:52:00 +0000http://observatory.journalism.wisc.edu/?p=17358Flint, Michigan, the city known for its contaminated water crisis, has something in common with Wisconsin — childhood lead poisoning. According to Wisconsin U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore of Milwaukee, the proportion of children with elevated blood lead levels among Wisconsin’s children has risen close to those of Flint.

In a letter to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,Moore said, “The rate of lead poisoning among children in Wisconsin is nearly equal to Flint, Michigan.”

The report noted that the statewide percentage of children tested who were diagnosed with elevated blood lead levels was 4.6 percent, a figure close to Flint’s 4.9 percent.

However, 2016 data show that the proportion of children tested who were lead poisoned in Wisconsin jumped to 5 percent — higher than Flint’s. That same year, 2.4 percent of Flint children tested had elevated blood lead levels at or above 5 micrograms per deciliter, according to data from the the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.

Milwaukee’s rate is even higher — four times higher than in Flint. In 2016, DHS data show 10.8 percent of Milwaukee children who were tested had elevated levels of lead in their blood. Those children accounted for nearly 60 percent of the 4,348 Wisconsin children found to be ead poisoned that year.

DHS reports that half of all of the children with elevated blood lead levels that year were black, or 13.2 percent of all black children tested. By comparison, 2.8 percent of white children tested were found to have levels of 5 mcg/dL of lead or higher, comprising 25 percent of all lead-poisoned children in Wisconsin.

Milwaukee is not the only county where lead poisoning is a problem. Ten Wisconsin counties, including Grant, Dodge, Marquette and Racine, exceeded the current statewide average of 5 percent of children tested with blood-lead levels at or above 5 mcg/dL.

State officials blame lead paint common in older homes for the bulk of lead poisoning cases, although there is growing evidence that water from lead pipes also could be contributing to the problem.

Moore’s claim that Wisconsin’s lead poisoning problem was nearly as bad as Flint’s was accurate using the data she had. Statistics that came out after her letter was written paint an even worse picture; 5 percent of children tested in Wisconsin in 2016 had elevated blood lead levels compared to 2.4 percent of children tested in Flint.

]]>17358https://observatory.journalism.wisc.edu/2018/05/10/wisconsins-rate-of-lead-poisoning-worse-than-flint-michigans/Great Lakes water diversion for Foxconn plant explained, debatedhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/wisc/kQvz/~3/0gc8Reay4iA/
Thu, 10 May 2018 17:48:07 +0000http://observatory.journalism.wisc.edu/?p=17352The Taiwanese company Foxconn, which was lured to Wisconsin with a $3.2 billion state incentives package, is in need of water for its production of LCD panels.

And now, the plant will have it — barring a challenge from environmental groups.

The Department of Natural Resources on April 25 approved a request from the city of Racine’s water utility — which serves the village of Mount Pleasant, where the Foxconn facility will soon be constructed — to divert 7 million gallons of water per day from Lake Michigan, most of it for Foxconn’s $10 billion campus.

How will Lake Michigan water be used?

Racine’s diversion application included a budget of where the 7 million gallons per day of water from Lake Michigan will go.

The diversion would make up 12 percent of Racine’s existing withdrawal capacity, according to the diversion application. Racine is currently allowed to withdraw up to 60 million gallons per day from Lake Michigan.

In 2016, the Racine Water Utility used an average of 16.9 million gallons per day, serving 30,425 residential customers, 2,308 commercial customers and 302 industrial customers.

Industrial water sales by the Racine water system have dropped by nearly half over the past 20 years as manufacturing jobs have left the service area. The city says the additional 7 million gallons a day in Lake Michigan water to help supply Foxconn would not be far from its historical use patterns and would not exceed its current allotment.

The city argues that the diversion for Foxconn would fall within its historical consumption of water for industrial uses. According to the application, between 1997 and 2016, industrial water sales in Racine fell by 47 percent to 5.1 million gallons a day as manufacturing jobs have left the area.

The application says that of the 7 million gallon diversion, 5.8 million gallons would go to Foxconn. Three million gallons per day would be used in the manufacturing process, 2.4 million gallons would be used for cooling, with the remainder for domestic uses such as toilets and handwashing.

Of that total 5.8 million gallons, 2.5 million would be consumed, or not returned to the lake, and 3.3 million gallons would be treated and returned to the lake.

The remaining 1.2 million gallons of the 7 million gallon a day diversion would be used for other “commercial and industrial purposes,” according to the application. None of the water being diverted to Mount Pleasant is earmarked for residential use.

This has caused the application to come under fire from environmental and conservation groups, because any request to take water from the Great Lakes must serve “public water supply purposes.”

“We’re reviewing the DNR’s decision and weighing our options in coordination with our coalition partners,” said Ezra Meyer, water resources specialist with environmental group Clean Wisconsin.

“This proposed diversion does not meet the letter or spirit of the Great Lakes Compact. Racine’s application is clear in stating that none of the diverted water from Lake Michigan would be used for public purposes, as required by the Compact and state law,” Meyer said in a statement.

The 2008 Great Lakes Compact is an agreement that bans new diversions of water leaving the Great Lakes Basin, or the land that drains water into the Great Lakes, except under “strictly regulated” circumstances.

One of those circumstances is that a diversion can be approved is if the request will serve “public water supply purposes.” Wisconsin state law defines a public water supply as one which serves “largely residential customers,” but may also serve some industrial or commercial customers.

According to the DNR, the application met this standard “because Racine’s public water system will continue to serve a group of largely residential customers, including the straddling community of Mount Pleasant.”

A potential issue that arises from the diversion is Mount Pleasant’s status as a “straddling community,” or one that sits within two watersheds.

Mount Pleasant sits partially within the Great Lakes Basin and partially within the Mississippi River Basin, connected by the Kilbourn Ditch. That is an agricultural canal running through the Foxconn property that connects to the Des Plaines River in the Mississippi watershed.

Environmental concerns over plant

As part of its incentive package, Foxconn was exempted from having to create an environmental impact statement for the project, limiting what can be understood about its impact. The company was also exempted from complying with certain state wetlands restrictions.

An environmental impact statement would have disclosed potential changes in the environment that the construction of and industrial activities at the Foxconn plant would create.

On May 4, the Illinois attorney general announced plans to sue the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over its decision to exempt the part of Racine County where Foxconn will be built from being named a nonattainment area for ozone. That designation would have required the plant to further reduce emissions.

Foxconn also has received criticism for its treatment of the environment in China. According to several news sources that cited 2013 reporting by the Wall Street Journal, Foxconn was investigated for allegedly dumping heavy metals into a river.

In another incident, after employees voiced concerns about poor ventilation in their Chengdu, China plant, combustible dusts caused an explosion in 2011 that killed three people and injured 15.

]]>17352https://observatory.journalism.wisc.edu/2018/05/10/great-lakes-water-diversion-for-foxconn-plant-explained-debated/Sen. Ron Johnson wants troops at the Mexican border. Do we need them?http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/wisc/kQvz/~3/J-9fmKfhZVk/
Sat, 05 May 2018 03:39:34 +0000http://observatory.journalism.wisc.edu/?p=17088In a television interview in April with Fox News, U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., emphasized a need for more help to patrol the United States’ southern border with Mexico.

Johnson, who is chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said, “We do need increased manpower. Part of our problem is our attrition rate is higher than our hiring rate, so we don’t have the number of Border Patrol agents. So I think that’s one of the reasons that’s really prompted the president to call up the National Guard.”

The issue he referred to was President Donald Trump’s recent request to send up to 4,000 National Guard troops to the southern border to help the Border Patrol curb illegal immigration and stop drug smugglers.

Johnson’s office did not return a request for the source for his claims. The Observatory decided to take its own look at those questions: Does the Border Patrol need more agents? And, does the agency suffer from high attrition?

Do we need more agents?

In January 2017, Trump signed two executive orders demanding 5,000 additional Customs and Border Protection agents and another 10,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

But a July report produced by the Inspector General’s Office for the Department of Homeland Security questioned whether the department has the ability to “quickly and effectively hire a highly qualified and diverse workforce.”

In addition, “Neither CBP nor ICE could provide complete data to support the operational need or deployment strategies for the additional 15,000 additional agents and officers they were directed to hire,” according to the report. “CBP officials explained they had been working for 3 to 4 years already, but are still 3 to 4 more years away from implementing a process to obtain and analyze accurate operational needs and deployment data.

“Without well-defined operational needs and comprehensive deployment strategies,” the report continued, “DHS may not be able to achieve the correct number, type, and placement of personnel.”

In November, the professional services corporation Accenture received a $297 million federal contract to hire the 5,000 CBP agents and 2,500 other officers and agents, according to the Los Angeles Times. Critics have noted that the contract amounts to $40,000 per job — or roughly a full year’s pay for a starting agent.

The increased hiring goal also comes at a time when illegal crossings at the southwest border have hit their lowest mark since 1971, according to the U.S. Border Patrol. Officers apprehended 303,916 people at the border in fiscal year 2017, which is a 25 percent decrease from fiscal year 2016.

“The decrease in apprehensions is an element to consider in developing both short- and long-term operational needs documents and deployment strategies,” the inspector general said.

Because of the reduced border crossings and questions from the DHS’ own inspector general about the agency’s lack of plans for how to deploy extra agents, we rate Johnson’s claim about the need for more border agents as Unobservable.

What is the attrition rate for CBP agents?

Attrition is the shrinking of the workforce by employees leaving and not being replaced. For the Customs and Border Protection, this appears to be true.

As of September 2017, the CBP had employed 19,400 agents, short of the congressionally mandated 21,370. A March 2018 CBP snapshot put employment of agents at 19,437 — still nearly 2,000 below the level mandated by Congress.

Between 2013 and 2016, the Border Patrol hired an average of 523 agents per year, while watching an average of 903 agents per year walk out the door. So, Johnson’s claim that the Border Patrol has a high attrition rate is Verified.

Our rating

Johnson’s claim that we need more manpower at our southern border is complicated because Johnson, the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, believes we need more agents, but apprehensions at the border are at a 47-year low, and the DHS’ Inspector General says the agency has no firm plans for how to deploy them. That makes the claim that the United States needs more people securing the border with Mexico as Unobservable.

But there is no doubt, based on Customs and Border Protection figures, that the agency does have a high attrition rate, as Johnson pointed out on Fox News. We rate that claim as Verified.

]]>17088https://observatory.journalism.wisc.edu/2018/05/05/sen-ron-johnson-wants-troops-at-the-mexican-border-do-we-need-them/Audible signals help blind navigate city. Does Madison have enough?http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/wisc/kQvz/~3/0GdlFAGfY4M/
Sat, 05 May 2018 03:27:37 +0000http://observatory.journalism.wisc.edu/?p=17079Denise Jess wakes up every morning with one thing in mind — what route to take to work?

Jess, 55, is a pedestrian commuter and lives in the neighborhood around her workplace. She is the CEO and executive director of the Wisconsin Council of the Blind and Visually Impaired. She takes neighborhood streets as far as she possibly can because they are quieter and there is less traffic. She does, however, eventually have to cross Williamson Street, a major street on Madison’s East Side.

Every morning, when she prepares for work, Jess decides whether to cross at South Livingston, Jenifer or South Paterson streets.

She said her choice could mean the difference between life and death.

Jess is legally blind. She has been visually impaired her whole life — caused by an underdeveloped optic nerve. She has no vision in her left eye and 20/400 in her right eye.

Her daily route is determined by the fact that the intersection closest to her office is the most direct but also the least safe because it has no audible controls, which alert blind pedestrians when it is safe to cross.

Jess said that statewide, there about 100,000 visually impaired people. A number of older people and Baby Boomers who are experiencing vision loss through diabetes, macular degeneration, retinopathy or other eye diseases do not necessarily identify as visually impaired, meaning the number likely understates the problem.

“You know folks will say ‘I don’t see as well as I used to,’ they don’t consider themselves visually impaired even though technically from a legal and a clinical standpoint they are,” Jess said.

Teodor Teofilov / The Observatory

Denise Jess, executive director of the Wisconsin Council on the Blind and Visually Impaired, says she faces a choice each morning when walking to work. She can go by way of the one intersection that has an accessible pedestrian signal, which has audible directions on when to cross, or two other intersections, which have no audible signals but which are five minutes’ walk shorter.

Currently, 73 of Madison’s 386 signalized intersections have accessible pedestrian signals. According to the city’s Traffic Engineering department, the cost, not including labor and engineering, is $1,230 for two buttons, enough for one crossing. These signals typically take two to three months from the time an individual makes a request to the day it is turned on.

There are three requirements for the installation of accessible pedestrian signals on a crossing. First the intersection must already be signalized. Second there must be a need for an audible signal, which is demonstrated by the request. And finally, the location should have unique characteristics, such as an unusual intersection configuration.

“For someone who is blind or visually impaired, every intersection, every street crossing is a unique situation,” Jess said. “We are listening for the traffic, we are listening for that sound that tells us it’s safe to go, but we are having to make that judgment call every single intersection. … Any intersection that is high traffic and busy is unique and scary for people that are blind and visually impaired.”

Jess said she generally goes out of her way to go to one of the two intersections with traffic signals, walking a block west or east and doubling back a block. When she goes to the intersection near her office with no traffic signal, Jess said she must listen extra closely to traffic before crossing.

Wisconsin’s White Cane Law requires drivers to yield to any pedestrian who is carrying a cane or walking stick which is white or white trimmed with red or who has a dog guide. The law states that drivers must stop at least 10 feet away or “take precautions as may be necessary to avoid accident or injury to the pedestrian.”

But vehicles do not always stop when the light is red. Jess said she sometimes waits longer when she doesn’t feel it is safe. One strategy is waiting for a bus to come down the street and using it as a “shield.”

And there are other things to consider.

“Is the sun going to be hitting the light in a certain way that it’s going to make it harder for drivers to see, and more likely that they’ll not pay attention to it?” Jess asked. “All of that has to be on my radar so that I can make the safest decision possible.”

Newer signals provide safer crossing

According to city traffic engineer Jerry Schippa, in recent years, the city of Madison has been purchasing new models of accessible pedestrian signals that come with a button that has an adjustable locator tone to help people find it, a tactile arrow that helps people feel the button and guide them to the crosswalk, an audible message that indicates when the “Walk” signal is on and what street the person is crossing. The crossing tone sounds until the flashing “Don’t Walk” signal comes on.

Older signals are equipped with devices that make a clicking sound, and these can be found around the Capitol Square. Other models make chirping or buzzing sounds, such as the pedestrian signal at Sawyer Terrace and Segoe Road on Madison’s West Side.

At these intersections, which can have up to four crosswalks, the different sounds are used to identify which “Walk” signal is on to avoid confusion, Schippa said.

Teodor Teofilov / The Observatory

About one-fifth of the signaled intersections in Madison also have audible signals to help visually impaired pedestrians cross the streets. The head of the Wisconsin Council on the Blind and Visually Impaired believes there should be more.

At the signalized intersection at Park Street and University Avenue, for example, when visually impaired people press the walk button, they hear a voice repeating “wait” until it is safe to cross. Once the walk sign is on, the voice repeats “University — walk sign is on to cross University” until the flashing and then solid “don’t walk” signal comes on. Then a repeated beeping sound signals it is not safe to cross.

Jess thinks that the best audible signal is the one that tells the user what the street she is on, but one that is not drowned out by the sound of traffic. She noted that the high pitched beeping ones can be heard over traffic, but she wonders about the impact on people with hearing loss, in addition to vision loss, as sometimes lower pitch noises are more easily perceived than higher pitched ones.

Jess said Madison’s image as a walkable city would be further enhanced by more audible signals. She called it “sad for a community of both Madison’s size and ethos” that it does not make it easier for the visually impaired to navigate the city.

Ironically, as of the publishing of this article, there is no signal at the intersection in front of the Wisconsin Council of the Blind and Visually Impaired. Jess said the organization has been working to get one installed for nearly a year. A traffic study had to be done to ensure that the intersection needs traffic signals, which then can be equipped with audible pedestrian signals.

]]>17079https://observatory.journalism.wisc.edu/2018/05/05/audible-signals-help-blind-navigate-city-does-madison-have-enough/Vinehout: Act 10 has damaged teachers, education in Wisconsinhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/wisc/kQvz/~3/_KdPeaQ3ZE0/
Fri, 04 May 2018 22:54:29 +0000http://observatory.journalism.wisc.edu/?p=17073Wisconsin state Sen. Kathleen Vinehout, a Democratic candidate for governor, published the following statement on Facebook on March 14, 2018:

“After Act 10 teachers left the profession. Young people going into teaching changed their majors. Now we have a teachers’ shortage. We must repair the damage done by Act 10. We’ve got problems now and they are only going to get bigger.”

The Observatory decided to check. We examined her statement as three separate items. The first being that after the enactment of Act 10, there has been an exodus of teachers in Wisconsin. The second that there are fewer young people pursuing teaching degrees. Lastly that there currently is a teacher shortage in the state.

When The Observatory contacted staff from Vinehout’s office, they provided us with multiple sources they used to support her claims.

Act 10 begins

Matt Baran / Creative Commons via Flickr

A protester signals his displeasure with Gov. Scott Walker’s plan, later adopted by the Republican-run Legislature, to strip collective bargaining rights from most public employees in Wisconsin, including teachers, during this Feb. 17, 2011 demonstration at the state Capitol in Madison. Sen. Kathleen Vinehout, who is running for governor in the Democratic primary, claims the change has harmed teachers and education in the state.

Wisconsin Act 10 was signed into law on March 11, 2011 by Republican Gov. Scott Walker. It reduced collective bargaining rights for state and municipal employees, which includes K-12 teachers. And it required teachers and other public employees in Wisconsin to pay more toward their retirement and health care plans.

The law weakened unions by implementing mandatory annual recertification elections and prohibiting paycheck deductions for union dues collection. It also eliminated teachers’ and other public employees’ rights to bargain about pay, hours and other conditions of employment.

Proponents of Act 10 argued the changes allowed schools to offset large cuts in general state aid by reducing districts’ cost to provide public employee benefits, thus preventing budget cuts from affecting students. Removing the requirements to negotiate over salary structures, hiring and working conditions would give schools additional flexibility to attract and retain higher-quality teachers, backers of the controversial law argued.

Have teachers left the profession?

A 2017 analysis by the Center for American Progress Action Fund, which is an independent, nonpartisan policy institute that advocates for progressive policies, shows that a large number of teachers have left the teaching profession in Wisconsin after the enactment of Act 10. This is especially true in the 2010-11 school year, when the increase in teachers aged 55 and over retiring jumped from about 15 percent in the 2009-10 school year to over 30 percent.

It is important to note that the findings of the Center for American Progress Action Fund includes all teachers who taught in Wisconsin public schools in a given year and didn’t teach in the year following. Some teachers later returned to their public school classrooms after gaps in their career.

This isn’t surprising as reports on the aftermath of Act 10 found teachers were spurred to seek retirement in order to keep early retirement benefits, such as health insurance. This surge in 2011 of teachers leaving the workforce was mostly teachers above the age of 55, which under the Wisconsin Retirement System is the minimum age to receive benefits.

After Act 10, the overall percentage of teachers leaving the profession rose from 6.4 percent in the 2009-10 school year to 10.5 percent in 2010-11, with exit rates remaining higher than before with 8.8 percent leaving in 2015-16.

The Observatory rates Vinehout’s claim that teachers have left the profession after Act 10 as Verified.

Fewer students studying education

When asked to verify that students are changing majors, Vinehout’s staff instead pointed us to data showing that fewer college students are pursuing education degrees.

Since the implementation of Act 10, there has been a decrease in enrollment in teacher preparation programs in Wisconsin, a University of Wisconsin-Madison report found. And according to a Journal Sentinel special report, 2015 saw the smallest group of juniors and seniors enrolled in teaching programs in over two decades.

Urban Milwaukee has also reported that UW-Milwaukee has seen a decrease in education majors — 3,000 enrolled in the program in 2010, down to 2,300 in 2015. Over the same period, UW-Stevens Point saw an 18 percent decrease, from 1,400 students in 2010 to 1,150 in 2015.

According to a Wisconsin Center for Education Research paper from January, enrollment in Wisconsin’s educator preparation programs has declined by 35.4 percent between 2010 and 2016 — from 12,323 to 7,956. Program completers decreased by 14.5 percent from 4,007 to 3,426, and total licensure endorsements has fallen by 17.2 percent from 8,815 to 7,301.

The paper notes that it is tempting to label Act 10 as the cause of the decline as these decreases start in “earnest following the enactment of Act 10.” But trends for the same timeframe show there has been a decrease in teacher training and licensing nationwide — although less than in Wisconsin.

Nationally, total enrollment in educator preparation programs has decreased by 33.6 percent, total licensure endorsements have decreased by 15.7 percent and total program completers has decreased by 11.5 percent from 2013 to 2016.

After Act 10, the average experience level of teachers in Wisconsin also decreased, according to the analysis by the Center for American Progress. Teachers with less than five years of experience increased from 19.6 percent in 2010-11 to 24.1 percent in 2015-16. The average teaching experience has also decreased, from 14.6 years in 2010-11 to 13.9 in the next school year, a level at which it remained in 2015-16.

Although multiple factors influence educational outcomes, such as student demographics, parental involvement, teacher quality and government policy, research has shown that students perform better when taught by teachers with more experience, according to the Learning Policy Institute, which conducts and communicates research to improve education.

Proponents of Act 10 underlined that removing requirements to negotiate over salary, hiring and working conditions would give schools more flexibility to attract and retain higher-quality educators, but this doesn’t seem to be the case.

The Observatory rates the claim that fewer young people are pursuing teacher qualifications as Mostly True, because although Act 10 may be a factor, this is in fact part of a national trend.

Shortage of teachers?

With a large number of teachers retiring after Act 10 and dwindling numbers of new teachers entering the profession, it is no wonder that Wisconsin is currently experiencing a teacher shortage.

The Department of Public Instruction confirmed in an email that “the shortage exists but in particular fields of high demand,” including certain subject areas and in “cross-categorical” special education in which teachers are certified to educate students with varying needs. The shortage also exists only in some regions of Wisconsin, DPI spokesman Thomas McCarthy said.

The total number of teachers in Wisconsin has decreased by 2.2 percent between the 2009-10 school year and 2015-16, according to a 2017 report from the Public Policy Forum. The nonpartisan, nonprofit organization is dedicated to enhancing the government and development of southeastern Wisconsin by researching regional public policy issues.

According to a 2017 report by the Wisconsin Budget Project, Wisconsin school districts struggle to fill vacancies, especially in math, science and technology. The report notes that one reason for teacher shortages is high turnover.

Since the adoption of Act 10, there has been an increase in teacher turnover — when a teacher leaves one Wisconsin district for another the next school year. Interdistrict moves increased from 1.3 percent to 3.4 percent at the end of 2014-15, according to the Center for American Progress report.

“If you have excessive turnover of young staff, you are constantly in a building mode,” Ann Haack, Elkhart Lake-Glenbeulah school district administrator, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in October 2016.

The Journal Sentinel examined spending and teacher data for 424 districts and found that 75 percent of districts were losing their teachers more often after Act 10 because a competitor offered better working conditions and compensation.

That turnover has been accompanied by lower, not higher, teacher salaries. According to the Center for American Progress, after Act 10, “year-over-year pay cuts were found across urban and rural counties” ranging from 2 to 3.4 percent when adjusted for inflation. The analysis also found that teachers with experience between five and 15 years have seen their annual salaries fall by an average of $4,273.

The Wisconsin Democrat Pocan wrote that, “President Trump is not sending troops to the southern border to stop the flow of drugs from Mexico. It is clear that his goal is to apprehend migrants, many of whom are children fleeing violence in their home countries.”

While we are unable to accurately assess Trump’s motivations, The Observatory decided to check the claim that many of the people coming across the southwest border who are unauthorized are children and that they are fleeing violence in their home countries.

According to the U.S. Border Patrol, 303,916 people were apprehended at the southwest border between Oct. 1, 2016 and Sept. 30, 2017.

Of that number, 41,435 were children who came across unaccompanied and another 41,131 were with an adult, for a total of 82,566 children. That means 27 percent of all people apprehended at the border between Mexico and Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California were children.

By comparison, 11,645 people, or 4 percent, were arrested for alleged drug smuggling during that time period.

And more than half of all apprehensions, or 175,978 people, were from places other than Mexico. Those countries include El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, where violence has prompted a growing number of people to seek legal asylum in the United States.

Walker has not always favored strict immigration enforcement. In the past, Walker supported legislation that some conservatives criticized as “amnesty.” In 2006, he signed a resolution calling on Congress to pass the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act, a bill introduced by U.S. Sen. John McCain, a Republican from Arizona.

One of the key elements of the bill was allowing undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States on or before May 12, 2005 to register for a temporary visa that would be valid for six years. They would have to pay a fine and back taxes, and have the opportunity to obtain permanent legal status later on. The bill failed to pass.

But in 2015, when he was a presidential candidate, Walker denounced a similar program, calling for the repeal of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). Trump rescinded former President Barack Obama’s executive order establishing DACA and gave Congress a deadline of March 5, 2018 to come up with legislation to determine what would happen to DACA recipients. Trump’s action has been blocked by federal court decisions.

The program protects people from deportation who entered the country illegally as children. DACA gives its recipients work permits and protection from deportation for two years, which can be renewed. There are an estimated 800,000 unauthorized immigrants who are being protected by DACA.

“After that (repeal of DACA), we need absolute security at our borders and then we can address fixing our legal immigration system and deal with those here illegally, but amnesty is not the answer,” Walker said in 2015.

Returning to Pocan’s claim that sending troops to the border was more about stopping migrants than fighting drugs, Border Patrol statistics show a significant portion of those crossing the southwestern border illegally in the last year were children, just as Pocan said.

And more than half of all of those apprehended came from countries other than Mexico, such as El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, which are experiencing significant violence, supporting Pocan’s claim that many of the migrants are fleeing violence.

Four percent of the arrests did involve people allegedly smuggling drugs. So it is likely that troops sent to the border would help with drug enforcement as well.

But statistics show the overwhelming majority of the 303,916 people apprehended at the southwest border were not drug smugglers, and 27 percent of them were children. So we rate Pocan’s claim, Mostly true.